Authors: Bethany Kane
The gentle wind blew in the trees, and the birds spoke to one another, and Katie listened to Rill’s passionate anthem above her. His pleasure was her gift to him. She celebrated her ability to give it. Once again, she lost herself in the moment. She used her hand as well as her mouth, and soon he was as stiff, swollen and delicious as he had been before.
“
No . . . no . . . you don’t have to again, Katie; it’s too much,” he grated out when she sucked him hard, tempting him. When she nodded her head once again, and took him deeper, he groaned. She could almost feel the sharpness of his pleasure like a knife scraping gently against an itch that had plagued for days.
This time when he began to climax, she controlled her instinct. She kept him deep. She never swallowed, but she felt him pouring his warm, fragrant essence into her body. It enlivened her, somehow, nourished her; not just his shooting seed, but the knowledge that she could give herself to something so wholly . . . so unselfishly.
That’d been why she’d sucked him off not once, but twice. It’d been an enlightenment, of sorts.
After she’d squeezed out every drop of come he had to give
her with that hot little mouth, she released him slowly. The sensation caused one last shiver of pleasure to course through him. Rill blinked dazedly when he felt her press her forehead against his hip and nuzzle him with her nose. His hand opened, releasing her ponytail. He palmed her head and stroked her scalp with his fingertips. She pressed her mouth beneath the bottom of his T-shirt and kissed the skin above his hip bone. A feeling of tenderness swept through him, the strength of it surprising him. Katie was a natural hedonist when it came to sex, but she was also a born snuggler. It amazed him to realize he not only planned to ravish every square inch of her, but he also wanted to feel her supple body pressed against his in lazy moments, to absorb her warmth . . . to hear her laughter.
Guilt swept through him when he recalled how ruthlessly he’d just treated her. Sure, it’d been a fantasy come true, but it was the type of fantasy Rill kept tightly sealed within him. When he’d been younger, he may have more openly demonstrated his dominant nature with experienced women. For Rill, however, those wild nights in bed with females whose names he’d long ago forgotten were on the same par as the nights of wild partying during his younger years. He’d considered them a thing of his past, youthful peccadilloes, something he’d grown out of when he’d married and taken on the responsibilities of adulthood.
Rill knew he wasn’t like most men, who fantasized about having a constant parade of beautiful, willing women in his bed. He hadn’t wanted that, even though it had been available to him in spades when he’d become a successful film director. If anything, when he’d started taking his career seriously, he’d wanted the opposite of a buffet of easy sex. He’d craved stability. He wanted a smart woman he could respect; a partner with whom he could build a stable, fulfilling life.
Maybe that was just the way of human beings, to always want what they’d never had.
Rill grimaced slightly in self-disgust and puzzlement at the brief thought of treating Eden like he’d just treated Katie. Eden’s and his sex life had been decent. It’d been—sufficient. He’d been attracted to Eden’s elegant beauty, but he’d never burned for her. Rill had wanted it that way. He wanted to treat his wife with respect, not hold her at the mercy of his potentially rabid sexual appetites.
Since Eden had died, his world had been turned upside down. He no longer understood the man who lived in his skin, the man who cared so deeply about Katie, and yet wanted to restrain her while he face fucked her; the man who demanded that she take his cock in her throat while he came in a rush of ecstasy and blinding need.
Rill distantly realized the birds had stopped singing. Perhaps he’d startled them with his harsh shout of anguished release when he’d climaxed. All was still in the forest but the sounds of their soughing breath.
He caressed Katie’s neck and hair in the sylvan silence.
After his breathing had slowed, he put his finger beneath Katie’s chin and lifted. Her head fell back. Her green eyes shone as she stared up at him. Her cheeks were flushed pink and were damp with tears. Golden tendrils of hair curled next to her cheek, escapees from the band she wore at her neck.
He touched her lips gently. They’d grown red and puffy from his forceful possession of her mouth. Regret surged through him. So did sadness, because the experience had been so potently addictive, he was sure to want to do it again . . . and again. He couldn’t stop himself from wanting Katie, and no half measures would do.
“Thank you,” he whispered. Before she had a chance to respond, he touched her swollen lips gently. “Do they hurt?”
She smiled beneath his fingertips. “A little.”
“I won’t kiss you the way I want to, then,” he said before he knelt. Her lips felt warm and soft beneath his kiss. He kept it brief, and he was gentle, but he hoped she felt a small degree of his gratitude in that kiss. She’d given herself so wholly to provide him with ultimate pleasure. He’d taken advantage of her sweetness . . . her generosity ...
. . . the fact that she’d admitted to having a crush on him. He’d take advantage of her again. He couldn’t seem to stop himself. But he wanted Katie to know that it wasn’t just the fact that he was at the lowest point in his life or that he possessed degenerate genes that had made him sacrifice their friendship.
It was her—Katie—who had him spinning in a whirlwind of need.
He lifted his head and straightened, reaching for her hands. He pulled her to a standing position and began to unfasten her jeans.
“Is the rock cold?” he murmured, focused on his task.
“Uh . . . yes,” she responded breathlessly.
“Would you rather stand?”
“Rather stand . . . for what?” she asked as he gripped the waistband of her jeans and lowered them over her round ass. The tiny little thong she wore would hardly have gotten in his way, but he lowered it anyway. It struck him that the air was chilly. He was still warm from multiple, boiling orgasms, but Katie was likely getting cold. He didn’t want to expose her completely to the cool air if he could prevent it.
“While I make you come,” he said as he went to his knees. He grasped her hips and drew her closer, eyeing the triangle of dark gold pubic hair he’d just exposed. He inhaled. A small smile tilted his lips when he caught the delicate, sweet fragrance of her arousal. He glanced up. She looked a little dumbstruck. “You didn’t think I was going to leave you hanging after what you just did for me, did you?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I’m just a little taken aback by your . . . forthrightness, I guess.”
He smiled. Still holding her gaze, he leaned forward and slid his tongue between nectar-sweet labia. He felt her quiver beneath his hands as he gave her clit a firm rubbing. She whimpered softly when he withdrew.
“Jaysus, Katie. You’re soaking wet,” he rasped in awe, staring up at her. “Did it really turn you on so much? What I just did to you?”
Her puffy lips fell open in surprise. “Yes. Is that bad?”
He winced at the sound of her voice. She sounded like she’d just polished her tonsils with sandpaper.
“Aw, Katie,” he whispered, moved by what she’d said and feeling guilty for the discomfort he’d caused her. He responded in the only way he knew how. He leaned forward and covered her with his mouth, eager to make up for his sins.
Because she stood, and because she wore a pair of tight jeans that he’d shoved just beneath her bottom, it was a tight, delicate maneuver. He’d rather have her legs spread wide for his ravishment, but these circumstances provided their own charms. Her jeans created a restraint at her hips. She could only part her legs an inch or two, so Rill focused exclusively on her external sex. He ran his tongue along her labia, gathering honey, carefully avoiding direct stimulation on her clit at first. She moaned and held on to his head. Her cream was delicious; musky, sweet . . . abundant. He pressed his nose between her labia and nuzzled her clit, drowning for a second in her essence. Her fingers tightened in his hair.
He lifted his head and sent his tongue where his nose had just been. He laved her clit briskly until her fingernails scratched his scalp. The tip of his tongue struck again and again, darting between tender folds, beating against that sensitive morsel of flesh like a metronome.
He heard her cries and felt the sting of her tugging at his hair, but he continued his assault on her senses. He held her buttocks in his hands, not allowing her to stray an inch. She cried out sharply when he turned his head and sucked her clit between the seam of his lips. The darting motions of his tongue resumed against her captive clit. He heard the desperation in her raspy voice as she leaned into him and called his name.
Her ass tightened in his palms as she began to shudder in orgasm. He held her tightly to him, continuing to stimulate her while she came. Her knees seemed to weaken, but he gladly took a measure of her weight, loving how it made him experience even more of her pleasure vibrating into his hands. Thoughts of her tight, clamping channel tortured him while he nursed her through her orgasm and the scent of Katie’s pleasure surrounded him, an intoxicating perfume.
He couldn’t wait to get back inside her.
A feral sense of possession overcame him. If Everett hadn’t come and ruined everything, Rill thought, he might have spent the majority of the past night and day with his cock buried in Katie.
Once her trembling had stopped, he lifted his head and moved his hand between her thighs. He grunted in male appreciation when he felt just how soaked she was. He wetted his finger in her creamy lubricant by lightly stimulating the opening of her slit. A postorgasmic shiver coursed through her at his intimate touch.
He withdrew his hand and glanced up to meet her gaze. Her eyelids were half-closed. She looked sex-drugged, dazed . . . indescribably beautiful.
He pushed back one of her bottom cheeks and pressed his lubricated fingertip to her rectum. Her body, which had previously grown warm and supple from orgasm, tautened.
He didn’t know why he did it. Or maybe he did. All control had been lost to him. He’d gone feral. He wanted Katie to know it. His nostrils flared as he watched her while he pushed his finger in her ass. She was tight and smooth and so hot he gritted his teeth. He saw a trace of puzzlement shadow her features. Her cheeks flushed pinker.
“Don’t look surprised,” he whispered. “There’s no going back. I’ll have all of you, Katie. Eventually.”
Her lower lip fell open. A chilly breeze whisked past them and rustled the trees. Katie shivered like the leaves. He leaned forward and placed a kiss on her fragrant mound. She didn’t speak, and neither did he, when he withdrew his finger, stood and helped her to pull up her jeans, covering her from the bite of the wind. After he’d straightened his own clothing, he grabbed Katie’s hand and made to start back down the hill.
“Rill? You’ll talk to Everett, won’t you? About what’s bothering you?”
He paused and briefly closed his eyes at the mention of Everett’s name.
“Rill? What
is
it?” Katie asked, clearly mystified and concerned.
“It’s okay,” he lied. “I’ll talk to him when we get down to the house. Just do me a favor, okay?”
“What?” Katie whispered.
“Don’t
you
talk to him, at least for a little bit. If he hears the state of your voice, he’ll probably skin me alive. And I can’t say I’d blame him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She gave a hoarse laugh. “I’m a thirty-year-old woman.”
“And you’re Everett’s little sister,” Rill countered matter-of-factly. He kissed her knuckle, silencing the protest on her tongue. Still holding her hand, he led her down the hill.
Seventeen
Rill stood in the kitchen, listening to the televised football
game in the living room and the sound of Katie’s feet on the stairs. He’d make it up to her later for his selfishness up there in the woods. For a few seconds, he wished he could join her right that second in the dormer bed.
He didn’t really want to
talk
to Everett.
He wanted to beat his face in.
Rill sighed heavily, banking his temper. In truth, he was nowhere near as furious with Everett as he had been last winter when he’d visited. It’d been nothing short of a miracle that he’d managed not to pulverize Everett at some point in his three-day stay in the house.
It was time to lance this wound, once and for all. The fact that it didn’t fester anywhere near as much as it had a year and a half ago somehow didn’t reassure Rill that much.
What if talking to Everett made everything a hundred times worse? There was always that chance, which was exactly why Rill had chosen a year ago to simmer in a pot of suspicion, confusion and anger versus confront Everett.
Uncertainty had its merits.
Once he knew the truth, it couldn’t be taken back. For the first time, though, Rill thought he could handle it. The truth didn’t have the potential to scald his consciousness as much as it had in the past.